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Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., and Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin, D-Ill., said that a bank tax for recouping the cost of the rescue of the financial system is unlikely. "You still have a lot of outstanding pieces of business here, and some of them are being held up because of lack of pay-fors, you know, so I wouldn't rule anything out completely," Mr. Durbin said. "But I think it's becoming more remote as the session comes to an end."

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Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., wants the Internal Revenue Service to carve out $20 million to $30 million from its budget to develop software that would allow average Americans to pay their taxes without having to consult professionals. Durbin, chairman of the Senate Appropriations subcommittee that oversees the IRS, raised the issue in recent testimony from Internal Revenue Commissioner Douglas Shulman. "We can eliminate the middleman," Durbin said. "It may save taxpayers money."

A weak commercial real estate market and the expiration of a tax credit for homebuyers have hampered economic growth in the U.S., according to the Federal Reserve's Beige Book. "Economic activity has continued to increase, on balance, since the previous survey," according to the report, which cites an uptick in the service industry, tourism and manufacturing.

With the regulatory overhaul signed into law, President Barack Obama appears to be taking a friendlier stance toward the financial industry compared with earlier this year. John Taylor, head of the National Community Reinvestment Coalition, said the language Mr. Obama used to vilify bankers in the past was intended to build public support for his legislative agenda. "It's now roll-up-the-sleeves time and put the rhetoric aside," Mr. Taylor said.

Leaders of the congressional committee that wrote the final version of legislation to overhaul financial regulation plan to hold hearings on a revision to proposed capital and liquidity rules from the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision. The Senate banking committee, headed by Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., and the House Financial Services Committee, chaired by Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., are expected to review the revised proposal and consider its effect on the country's banking system.

The Senate recently approved a measure that would impose new price controls on interchange fees. Lawmakers, in an effort to presumably help small business, are moving toward reducing the sector's availability of credit along with that of low-income consumers. The amendment, sponsored by Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., was rejected by 10 Democrats, while 17 Republicans voted in favor of it.